parthenogenesis Biol.
(ˌpɑːθənəʊˈdʒɛnɪsɪs)
[f. Gr. παρθένο-ς virgin + γένεσις origin, birth, nativity, genesis.]
Reproduction without concourse of opposite sexes or union of sexual elements.
Now usually restricted to reproduction by the development of a single sexual cell (as an ovum or ovule) without fertilization by union with one of the opposite sex (which occurs, normally or occasionally, in certain insects and other invertebrates, and in rare instances in plants); formerly used more widely to include asexual reproduction, as by fission or budding (cf. agamogenesis).
| 1849 Owen (title) On Parthenogenesis, or the Successive Productions of Procreating Individuals from the Single Ovum. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. xiv. (1878) 387 The term parthenogenesis implying that the mature females..are capable of producing fertile eggs without the concourse of the male. 1875 Bennett & Dyer Sachs' Bot. 805 note, Parthenogenesis..is a phenomenon of very rare occurrence in the vegetable kingdom. 1879 tr. Haeckel's Evol. Man I. ii. 28 The so-called parthenogenesis, or virginal generation, of Bees has been proved..by the meritorious zoologist, Siebold, of Munich, who also showed that male Bees develop from unimpregnated, and female bees only from impregnated eggs. 1886 Vines Physiol. of Plants xxiii. 674 When..these gametes, having failed to conjugate, germinate independently, it must be assumed that both male and female parthenogenesis takes place. 1889 Geddes & Thomson Evol. of Sex xiii. §1 In 1701, Albrecht observed that a female silkmoth, which had been isolated in a glass case, laid fertile eggs... The occasional parthenogenesis of this insect has been repeatedly confirmed by competent observers. 1902 D. H. Campbell Univ. Text-bk. Bot. v. 122 In one species of Chara, C. crinita, the oöspores are developed without fertilization—one of the few well-authenticated cases of parthenogenesis. 1936 [see eutelegenesis]. 1950 Adv. Genetics III. 195 In vertebrata normal parthenogenesis is unknown (with the possible exception of certain fish hybrids). 1965 Bell & Coombe tr. Strasburger's Textbk. Bot. 203 There are exceptions in which a sexual cell will germinate and undergo development without fertilization. This phenomenon is referred to as parthenogenesis. Habitual parthenogenesis is that occurring when egg cells germinate regularly without fertilization. |
| fig. 1870 Lowell Among my Bks. Ser. i. (1873) 223 How one sin involves another, and forever another, by a fatal parthenogenesis. |